|
The Three Musketeers
| Released |
12 October 2011 |
| Director |
Paul W. S. Anderson |
Starring
|
Luke Evans, Matthew Macfadyen, Ray Stevenson, Logan Lerman, Milla Jovovich, Christoph Waltz, Orlando Bloom, Mads Mikkelsen, Freddie Fox, Juno Temple, James Corden, Gabrielle Wilde |
| Writer(s) |
Andrew Davies, Alex Litvak |
Producer(s)
|
Paul W. S. Anderson, Jeremy Bolt, Robert Kulzer |
Origin
|
Germany, France, United Kingdom, United States |
| Running Time |
110 minutes |
| Genre |
Action, adventure, romance |
| Rating |
12A |
|
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One for all and all for….. like whatever!
If you ever wondered why English director Paul W. S. Anderson goes by such an unwieldy moniker, it’s to differentiate himself from Paul Thomas Anderson. PT Anderson is of course the hugely talented director of Boogie Nights, Magnolia and There Will Be Blood. Paul W. S. Anderson’s CV is a little less stellar. After showing some promise with his early work such as the creepy Event Horizon, he has become what’s known as a “happy hack”. Basically he’s a gun-for-hire director who makes rubbish films competently and cheaply.
Anderson seems to specialise in a particularly unloved field, adapting video games into films. He cut his teeth with Mortal Kombat before moving onto the lucrative Resident Evil franchise, which has now run to four films. At least Anderson met his wife, the model and actress Milla Jovovich, on these films, so it’s not all bad. Jovovich features as M’lady de Winter in this latest adaptation of Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel.
In the opening sequence she and three musketeers, Athos (Matthew Macfadyen), Aramis (Luke Evans), and Porthos (Ray Stevenson) team up for an elaborate heist in Venice. They are breaking into Leonardo da Vinci’s vault to steal his plans for a flying air-ship (don’t look for that part in the original novel). Of course, she betrays them at the last minute to the Duke of Buckingham (Orlando Bloom – remember him?) and they lose the plans. This is such a blow to their pride that they retreat into a life of medial jobs and heavy drinking.
M’lady meanwhile is working for Cardinal Richelieu (Christoph Waltz) as a double agent. Richelieu is attempting to foment war with England by making King Louis (Freddie Fox) think Queen Anne (Juno Temple) is having an affair with Buckingham. To do that he hires M’lady to plant jewels Louis gave to Anne on their wedding night in Buckingham’s home.
Meanwhile D'Artagnan (some American brat called Logan Lerman) arrives in Paris looking to become a musketeer. Upon his arrival he immediately picks a fight with Richelieu’s chief henchman Rochefort (Mads Mikkelsen). He just about escapes from that one but then he challenges each of the three musketeers to duels for the most minor of incidents. When the time for the duels arrive you’d hope the three will just get rid of the murderous lunatic but unfortunately they join forces to attack Rochefort’s men instead when they try to arrest all four for duelling. Then after more random nonsense, they agree to go to England to help retrieve the Queen’s jewellery to foil Richelieu’s evil plan.
This really should be fun, but it’s not. Most of the reasons are due to Anderson’s lazy, uninspired direction. He desperately tries to appeal to a teenie audience with the casting of Lerman who is singularly the most obnoxious incarnation of D’Artagnan ever brought to the screen. He’s so appalling; you’ll actually root for the baddies in the big battle scene at the end.
The rest of the cast don’t seem to care too much. The European contingent of Waltz, Jovovich and Mikkelsen seem to have enough contempt for the material to just go through the motions. Orlando Bloom does a bad Leslie Philips impersonation. Ray Stevenson is amiable enough as Portos but if you’re wondering who Luke Evans was to get the role of Aramis, you’ll still be wondering after this as he’s pretty much anonymous. The most fun comes with the performance of Matthew Macfadyen as Athos. Having clearly missed a meeting, Macfayden acts as if he’s in a “proper film” so he does some “proper acting”. His emotional hysterics jar hilariously with the rest of the cast.
As if things weren’t bad enough, James Corden, England’s ubiquitous and irritating ‘comedian’, turns up in a silly wig as Planchet, the servant. He’s presumably there for comic relief but his presence is as grating as ever.
Children of low intelligence may just be able to enjoy this rubbish but heaven help the adults who have to sit through it with them.
Oh and the 3-D is hopeless as well.
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Jim O’Connor |
